Perspective: Don't blow it, Congress

As Congress begins writing new telecom legislation, a big question is whether Internet users will have the same broad freedom to access applications and content as before, or whether their online experience will be controlled by companies supplying your Net access.

Those seeking to preserve this freedom are asking Congress to codify "Net neutrality." Those seeking to control the Internet dismiss it as unprecedented regulation of the Internet.

But the dirty little secret is that without regulation, the vital Internet we know today would never have developed. Most of the rhetoric over the past few years has painted a much different picture--that the lack of regulation was crucial to the Internet's development.

That may well have been true for the design of computers and software. But regulation was the key to the Internet's development; the telephone companies over whose lines Internet traffic was transmitted were required by the Federal Communications Commission to carry all dial-up calls and to bring the return data back.

Now, in the broadband era, the game has changed, and not totally for the better.

The basic telephone network was in those days, and remains now, what is called a "common carrier." The telephone companies couldn't refuse to handle a call to an online service, much as they couldn't refuse to send a voice call to its intended destination. As a result, users could go anywhere on the Internet they desired and have access to any Web site without the interference of gatekeepers.

That go-anywhere freedom is the best legacy of the dial-up era. Now, in the broadband era, the game has changed, and not totally for the better. It is certainly true that new services like cable-provided broadband, and the telephone companies' DSL (digital subscriber line) or fiber-based services, provide customers with the types of capabilities and services unheard of just a few years ago.

That's the good side. Then there's the potential for the not-so-good side. Unlike the basic telephone network, the broadband services are not common carriers. In fact, the new services are generally not regulated at all.

Among the potential consequences of the new wide-open regulatory regime is a shutdown of the user experience by network operators. A recent study from the Communications Futures Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology concluded that today's business models give broadband operators "the perverse incentive to throttle innovative, high-bandwidth uses of the Internet." New videoconferencing, collaborative gaming, and interactive TV and video could all be threatened.

Unlike the telecom debates of the late 1990s, these days there isn't a serious counterbalance to the power of the telephone companies, as the old AT&T and MCI tried to be back then.

We're not calling for a burdensome regulatory regime. What we would like to see, however, is for Congress to make certain that the broadband companies, primarily local cable operators and telephone companies, don't squeeze out the applications and services of others in favor of theirs, or make preferential deals with some service providers to the detriment of others and, ultimately, to the detriment of the consumer.

When the FCC deregulated cable modem service in 2002, the commission envisioned that the broadband market would expand and be much more competitive than it is now. Lucky residential customers have a choice of cable or telephone--a classic duopoly. Others are stuck with no choice at all. (Unfortunately, FCC statistics don't track broadband competition in the residential market.)

Trying to persuade Congress to enact these neutrality principles will take some doing, because the incumbents will try to protect their advantages in the market. It's only natural that they do so.

Unlike the telecom debates of the late 1990s, these days there isn't a serious counterbalance to the power of the telephone companies, as the old AT&T and MCI tried to be back then.

This is an opportunity for the highest levels of the tech industry to show what the future of the Internet means to them. To be sure, technologists cared about the development of the Internet, both as an experience for consumers and as a technological phenomenon. Some, like Vint Cerf, one of the "fathers" of the Internet, still do. There are many individuals who care as well.

But if the past few months of debate over Net neutrality are any indication, it is hard to know where tech companies really stand. Do any of them really care about those of us who use the Internet, or about the remarkable diversity of content and experience that has grown up around it? Or was the Internet from the start, and remains today, simply a market to sell software, routers, chips or books?

In Washington, the answer means a lot, particularly now as new telecommunications legislation could drastically change the character of the Internet as we know it. Now is the time for the tech industry to figure out if the Internet is to remain the open and innovative environment that has benefited everyone, companies included, over the years.

When ex-SBC (now AT&T) Chairman Ed Whitacre starts talking about drastic changes to the Internet, an answer from similar altitude is needed. It takes a Meg Whitman from eBay or Jeff Bezos from Amazon.com to respond. We know the big broadband providers will be in the fight to do what they want with their networks. What we don't yet know is whether the tech industry will stand up for itself and the public.

Biography
Gigi B. Sohn is the president and co-founder of Public Knowledge, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group.

More Perspectives

[qquirks]

deregulation to ruin open internet?

As a person who has lived through the eras of deregulation of radio, television, and the telephone, can there really be any doubt about the outcome for the internet?
When is the last time you watched commercial TV stations and the horrendous programs they now show? It's infomercial city out there. Your telephone landline is fractured by carrier and service area. Your cel phone services are increasingly split by provider.
Now there's subscription "satellite radio." There's Google's in-country version of China. There's an increasing divergence in work and media center computer systems. Heaven help you if you want a flat screen monitor with that system and adequate memory to make it operate. It's all designed to do one thing -- force the consumer to purchase more and more gizmos, gadgets, services, and options.
You really expect software and hardware vendors to step forward and save the open internet when they might be able to make one more buck? Please don't be so naive.
The only thing that might save the free internet is open source developments and their widespread use, and a consumer revolt which says don't purchase the latest commercial technology unless it provides all the services you want.
If consumers don't put their collective feet and wallets down and hit the purveyors in the pocketbook, the open internet is doomed!

Tough Decisions Ahead

The ILECs say that they can't make money on
large-scale fiber installation unless they can
make money over and above the plain old bit
transport fees.

Their critics say that this is deliberate foot-
dragging and that the ILECs are holding the USA
broadband system hostage.

The truth is somewhere in between. For places
where the population density is above 100 people
per acre, we already have a medium-good situation
with regard to competition. Affluent urban areas
usually have competition between DSL, cable, and
(often) 802.x. The problems arise in places
where the population density is below 1/acre.

I live in Northern California, in an area where
the poulation density is around 3-4 acres/house.
We have 802.11-based DSL service, because a
group of us built it ourselves (nocat.net).
I would have installed a clone of this system
in the Los Altos Hills in early 2000, but none
of the VCs wanted to fund it.
(Thanks a lot, guys!)

The fact is that rural and low-density suburbs
have different requirements than high-density
areas, and it may be necessary to have some kind
of _temporary_ rules which allow restriction of
service. For example, nocat does not allow
BitTorrent on the system. Why not? Because it's
a greedy little pig, which sucks up ALL of the
bandwidth. If it used only idle cycles, or
only operated when the load is under 80%, then
it might be OK. In fact, this application uses
up so much bandwidth that it brings everybody
else to their knees. We had to ban it.

If somebody was to run fiber optic cable to
places like Freestone, Occidental, and Bodega
in order to provide, say, 10-BaseT internet
service, it would represent an investment of
perhpas $1000 per user, plus monthly charges
for the backhaul. There is no way that this is
going to happen if the "common carrier" rules
will be abused to allow, for example, sale of
subnet services. It's a simple economic reality.

So, my suggestion is this: Congress should
allow a 10-year period after new build-out
during which time the carrier would be allowed
to filter out or charge extra for VOIP and
certain other named services, and that this
special rule should only apply to places which
are under-served and which have low population
density.

[zeroplane]

Ok so why would I not go to cable?

I currently use DSL because of the stable upstream and downstream. However, there is not much keeping me on DSL. I have a cellphone that I use more than my landline. And should this type of regulations not exist and the telecoms become predatory then there is nothing stopping me or millions of others from switching to cable. Blocking VOIP, file sharing, internet sharing, or providing preferred service to specific vendors just increased the likehood that smart consumers (aka non-AOL users) will choose an alternative.

[directorblue]

Good luck getting carriers to answer these three questions:

1) Will you use deep packet inspection to monitor and/or meter customer behavior?

2) Will you offer tiered (e.g., "gold", "silver", and "bronze") Internet packages to customers who are otherwise operating at the same bandwidth?

3) Will you monitor, delay, and/or block voice-over-IP (VoIP), peer-to-peer file transfers, or any type of service used by customers?

The hardware that Cisco and others are pitching the carriers implies that, indeed, they are exploring new, intrusive, and anti-innovation methods of controlling what content providers can do:

http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2006/02/end-of-internet-another-fantastic-deal.html

You can also google "Cisco SEF" to start smelling what the carriers may be thinking:

"...with the Cisco SEF, service providers can treat [external] services as partners rather than competition. By creating an open network environment through which non-facility operators can ensure a more reliable customer experience for their application traffic, broadband service providers can create new revenue-sharing business models. The SEF allows service providers to efficiently and equitably identify [external content providers'] traffic streams for billing, auditing, and guaranteed performance."

Hmmmm... I think we can all read between the lines there, can't we?